Abstract
Absolute pitch (AP) refers to the rare ability to name the pitch of a tone without external reference. It is widely believed that acquiring AP in adulthood is impossible, since AP is only for the selected few with rare genetic makeup and early musical training. In three experiments, we trained adults to name pitches for 12 to 40 hours. After training, 14% of the participants (6 out of 43) were able to name twelve pitches at 90% accuracy or above, with semitone errors considered incorrect. This performance level was comparable to that of real-world ‘AP possessors’. AP training showed classic characteristics of perceptual learning, including performance enhancement, generalization of learning and sustained improvement for at least one to three months. Exploratory extrapolation analyses suggest that 39.5% and 58.1% of the participants would acquire AP if the training lasted for 60 and 180 hours respectively, suggesting the potential for the majority of the participants to acquire AP. We demonstrate that AP continues to be learnable in adulthood. The extent to which one acquires AP may thus be better explained by the amount and type of perceptual experience.